Rohingya Muslims on a raft made with plastic containers cross over the Naf River from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Shah Porir Dwip on Nov. 12. | A.M. Ahad/AP Photo

Amid charges of ethnic cleansing and genocide, the secretary of state faces pressure to show the Trump administration takes human rights seriously.

By NAHAL TOOSI

11/14/2017 05:13 AM EST

Updated 11/14/2017 10:24 AM EST

2017-11-14T10:24-0500

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit Myanmar on Wednesday amid growing pleas for the Trump administration — which has been harshly criticized for downplaying human rights issues — to more forcefully intervene in what some observers call an anti-Muslim genocide there.

U.S. lawmakers and activists are urging Tillerson to sanction Myanmar’s military if it doesn’t stop what a top United Nations official has called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya Muslim minority. The vicious crackdown on the Rohingya includes the killing of small children, seemingly systematic rape of women, and the razing of villages, and has sparked an exodus of more than 600,000 Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh since late August.

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President Donald Trump has not spoken in public about the crisis, despite hopes that he might address it during his two-week tour through Asia. But activists and officials said Tillerson’s visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma, sends a crucial signal that the U.S. is taking the situation seriously.

Some believe the visit offers the administration a chance to rebut perceptions that it is anti-Muslim and anti-refugee. It is also an opportunity for Tillerson to win favor with a diplomatic community that has judged him harshly, including for suggesting that he places a low priority on human rights.

“We hope and believe that Tillerson will convey a very tough message to the Burmese military because the violence is still going on,” a senior Bangladeshi government official told POLITICO. “U.S. pressure, U.S. words and U.S. actions, of course, are taken seriously in Burma.”

Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation in the House and Senate that would reimpose U.S. sanctions on Myanmar unless its government stops persecuting the Rohingya. President Barack Obama lifted many U.S. sanctions after establishing ties to the long-isolated country in 2012.

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Myanmar is a majority Buddhist country where the Rohingya, who are mainly Muslim, have long faced discrimination and bouts of repression. The latest crackdown began after a deadly attack on Myanmar security forces by suspected Rohingya rebels, but activists say the reprisal is wildly disproportionate. The campaign is the most intense persecution the Rohingya have faced since Myanmar began transitioning to democracy in 2010 after decades of military rule.

Obama hailed the democratic transition and became the first U.S. president to visit the country, where he met with its most famous pro-democracy activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi is now Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, but she has little power over the military and has downplayed the Rohingya crisis. On Tuesday, ahead of a session with Tillerson on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in the Philippines, Suu Kyi said nothing when asked by a reporter if she believed the Rohingya were citizens of Myanmar.

After a slow initial response, the Trump administration has recentlytaken steps to express its displeasure to Myanmar. It has declared that the U.S. will not offer assistance to culpable military units and rescinded invitations for senior Burmese security officials to U.S.-sponsored events. It also has pledged millions in humanitarian aid, much of which will go to Bangladesh, the poor, densely populated country dealing with an influx of Rohingya refugees.

While a top U.N. official has said the atrocities are a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” the State Department is still mulling whether to use that label or the more legally weighty “genocide.” But Tillerson has publicly warned Myanmar to stop the violence or face consequences.

“We really hold the military leadership accountable for what’s happening,” Tillerson said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in mid-October. “What’s most important to us is that the world can’t just stand idly by and be witness to the atrocities that are being reported in that area.”